Race Summary
Prost led from the start, away from Senna, the Ferraris and the Benettons, although after ten laps Gerhard Berger began having issues with the fuel system of his Ferrari. On lap 19 while coming up to traffic, Senna managed to pass his teammate at the L'Epingle hairpin to take a lead he would not lose. Alessandro Nannini retired from fourth position in the Benetton with electrical problems on lap 15. On lap 23 Berger retired with engine problems, meanwhile Nigel Mansell relished passing his old team mate Nelson Piquet in the Honda turbo powered Lotus, although this would only last six laps before his engine failed. The same happened five laps later to his team mate Riccardo Patrese.
On lap 34, Michele Alboreto retired, his Ferrari experiencing a similar engine problem as Berger allowing Thierry Boutsen to take the third place, which he maintained until the finish of the race. With many of the front runners out, minor teams had a clear chance of scoring points. By the middle of the race Philippe Streiff brought his AGS up to the fifth place, ahead of Andrea de Cesaris' Rial in sixth. Their luck didn't last though: Streiff retired after rear suspension failure caused a spin on lap 41, while de Cesaris, with a car that was widely known to have too small a fuel tank, ran out of fuel with 3 laps to go. This allowed Ivan Capelli to put in the most surprising performance of the day, taking his March-Judd to the fifth place.
Ayrton Senna won, 5.9 seconds ahead of Prost with Boutsen 45.5 seconds behind Prost in third. Piquet was fourth in the Lotus, albeit a lap down on Senna, with Capelli finishing fifth in the March. The final point surprisingly went to Jonathan Palmer in the troublesome Tyrrell. The injured Derek Warwick put in the drive of the race in his Arrows-Megatron to finish just outside of the points in seventh after a half-race long duel with team mate Eddie Cheever that ended when Cheever retired with a broken throttle cable on lap 31. Warwick also had to endure the turbo pop-off valve cutting in early leaving him with less than desirable power from his turbo engine and an increasingly sore back from his accident the previous day.
Senna set the circuit lap record with a 1:24.973 on lap 53 of the 69 lap race. This compared to Nelson Piquet's previous lap record set in 1986 of 1:25.443 set in a Williams-Honda.
Read more about this topic: 1988 Canadian Grand Prix
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